Sometimes I Should Quit While I'm Ahead

After writing about psyching myself up to finish my long lingering UFO, I started work on the sleeves. I even finished one of them. It was after starting on the second that I realized I'd made two mistakes. 1. The second sleeve was definitely a different color than the first. Since this yarn is veil dyed, that shouldn't be so obvious. 2. I accidentally skipped a few decreases in the sleeve, having misread the pattern and run the risk of running out of yarn. I took a deep breath and started frogging. Both sleeves have been ripped back to the decreases in question, which was a big pain in the ass. I'd dutifully alternated between two skeins of yarn, so I couldn't just pull mindlessly. Now, I can correct the baggy sleeves and do a bit more color mixing between the skeins, but it might be a nail biter on the yardage.

This morning, I was chillaxin' in bed, trying to save my strength for the evening, when I heard a knock at the door. My doorbell must be invisible, because no one ever uses it. Apparently, some dick in a van who works for the town where I live was driving around writing notices. As in, we've noticed that your grass is too long and you must remedy the situation. They gave me a single day. I'm still not 100% and I have a large yard, some of which had not been mowed at all this summer. I'd like to claim that this was due to my love of wildflowers, which were plentiful, but mostly it was laziness. Thinking unprintable thoughts about the local government, I mowed and mowed and mowed. Insects bit me and the sun shone oppressively on my pale skin. I felt like I needed to lie down. Miraculously, I did not need a scythe to take care of the back yard-- though I didn't go all the way to the back where the poison ivy is. I was full of self-pity, aches, bites, and had an unnaturally rosy tint to my cheeks. Then I realized, the town doesn't care that I'm sick. It's especially inconvenient for me, but unlikely to get any kind of extension out of them. Then I thought, what if I had a 9-5 job, which would leave me even less time to attack the problem. Also, my backyard is not visible from the street. That creeped me out.

I'm having a bit of a relapse on the sinus front. Now I feel stuffed up and a little wheezy. That could be from allergies, which were certainly taunted by all that yard work. My ears feel like they're stuffed with cotton, like an aspirin bottle. That made troubleshooting a new mic very challenging. Fortunately, everyone was very nice about it, but it frustrates me. The next couple of days might not be the best time to ask me, "what's that sound?". I'm going to go another round with the decongestants and try to get some rest.

There were a couple of good things that happened today. I set up my first swap on Ravelry! I am trading a skein of Mamablue Sea Merino yarn for a skein of Madeline Tosh! I'm sure that both parties think they are getting the better end of the deal. I really like the Sea Merino base yarn, but the pink color turned out to be kind of ho-hum in person. The Madeline Tosh yarn is gorgeous (I googled, as well as looking at the provided pics) and green. I love green.

I also bought cheap gas today. Cheap gas sounds bad. I found a really great price for gas, thirty cents cheaper than all the stations near me. Some would argue that driving out of your way to get a better price on gas doesn't really save you anything because of the fuel consumed getting there, but I spent $3 less than I would have buying from the price gougers down the street. Regardless of the price of crude oil, their prices remain the same. High.